BY AGNES NWORIE, ABAKALIKI
Suspected social media scammers have been arrested for swindling unsuspecting job seekers in Ebonyi State of N11, 300,000.
The suspects, Chidiebere Ndigwe, 46 and 30-year-old Ikembuchukwu Donatus, allegedly impersonated the Chief Medical Director of National Obstetrics Fistula Centre, Abakaliki, Johnson Obuna, through fake social media accounts and defrauded some job seekers.
According to the state Commissioner of Police, Augustina Ogbodo, the suspects would be charged to court after investigations.
Ogbodo revealed that the male suspects advertised non-existing jobs on the fake accounts they created and collected the sum of N11,300,000 from unsuspecting social media users who declared interests in the fake jobs.
The Commissioner of Police said, “The suspects pulled a photograph of the Medical Director of National Obstetric Fistula Centre Abakaliki from the Centre website with which they created a fake Facebook account where they advertised non-existing job opportunities.
“Applicants were mandated to contact designated numbers via WhatsApp from where they were further directed to pay specific sums according to the position applied for, cumulatively, they collected about Eleven Million Three Hundred Thousand Naira (N11, 300,000) from the various victims.”
“The suspects will soon be charged to court,” Ogbodo noted.
Reacting to the rumours that the hospital defrauded prospective employees, the management of the medical centre debunked it, saying it never issued any job adverts.
The Public Relations Officer of the hospital, Uchechukwu Idam, refuted the speculation, saying the hospital was not recruiting and did not conduct any recruitment exercise recently through social media.
Idam disclosed that they were also embarrassed when job seekers stormed the hospital complex recently for a scheduled job interview, unknown to the management.
He said, “The National Obstetrics Fistula Centre Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, does not advertise jobs on social media. We have an official website and conventional media where we advertise for serious exercises as recruitment of personnel. We did not conduct recruitment recently and did not collect money from prospective employees before job offers.
“The stories making the rounds are mere rumours from people who may have been swindled by social media scammers.”
